Kerala CM's home constituency to host "global dairy village"

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's home constituency, Dharmadom, is all set to be the southern state's dairy hub, thanks to an integrated development project envisaged by the Left government.

Vengad village panchayat in Dharmadom Assembly constituency, located in Kannur district, will soon have a "global dairy village" and its preliminary procedures are getting completed, state Minister for Dairy Development and Animal Husbandry K Raju informed the Assembly on Wednesday.

The global dairy village, an integrated dairy development project, is a major initiative of the state to attain self-sufficiency in milk production.

Dairy units and plants, food processing plant and the conservation and rearing of the high-quality indigenous cattle breed would be some of the programmes planned under the initiative, the minister said.

"We are also planning to set up satellite dairy units in the village panchayats of the constituency including Dharmadom, Pinarayi, Muzhuppilangadu, Ancharakkandi and so on besides Vengad," he said during Question hour.

Giving details about the ambitious project, Raju said the 'dairy village' envisages to make maximum use of the possibilities of indigenous cow breeds and the commercial value of its high quality milk.

"Besides milk production, there are also plans to produce value-added dairy products using modern technology and find them domestic and foreign market," he said.

Farm tourism would be promoted as part of the dairy village and organic vegetables would be cultivated with the support of local people, the minister added.

As per the 1996 socio-economic survey of Dharmadom, about nine per cent of the households owned milching cows while about eight per cent own non-milching cows.

About seven per cent of the households are involved in the rearing of goats and three per cent of them involved in the rearing of other animals including ducks.